The present invention relates to a service method of connection management for a communication line capable of providing a service of line connection to a telephone caller (a person using the communication line to conduct his or her desired communication) on a communication line such as a telephone line.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a flowchart indicating a conventional service method of connection management for a communication line, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-30657. As shown in FIG. 5, a step S1 is set to indicate to a user several kinds of charges, a step S2 is set for selecting one kind of charge from the several kinds of charges, a step S3 is provided for setting a connection frequency in accordance with the request of a telephone caller, a step S4 is provided for performing a desired connection in a communication line in accordance with the caller""s demands.
An operation of a system shown in FIG. 5 may be described in the following. Namely, a service system of connection management for a communication line is used to provide a line connection service when there is a request from a telephone caller who wants the communication line to be connected to another person (a called person). At this time, a caller is perhaps willing to pay a kind of high charge in order to obtain a line connection in preference to (earlier than) other users. For this reason, at least two kinds of different charges should be shown to the caller (at step S1), so that the caller is allowed to select one kind of charge from the several kinds of charges (at step S2). In this way, a connection frequency is set (at step S3) at a predetermined rate corresponding to a kind of charge selected by the caller, and an operation for the connection of a communication line is controlled (at step S4) in accordance with the connection frequency set at the step S3.
However, there is at least one problem associated with the above-discussed conventional service method of connection management for a communication line. For example, there might be a situation where a communication line is extremely crowded because a lot of people want to use the line at exactly the same time since a disaster has happened. During such an emergency, every person wants to obtain a line connection as soon as possible and thus requires a high connection frequency, resulting in a problem that the existing communication lines are not enough at all. This, however, will produce another problem. Namely, during an emergency, even if a communication line can be extremely crowded, a caller will try to make a phone call again and again. Once the caller is successful in getting contact with another person (a called person) by being connected with each other, he or she will not easily stop his or her talking. As a result, it is impossible for other people to use the communication line to make their desired phone calls.
The present invention is to solve the above-discussed problem, its purpose is to provide an improved service method of connection management for a communication line, which method is capable of allowing a lot of people to use a communication line during a short time period, regardless of a situation in which a disaster has occurred and a communication line has become extremely crowded because many people want to obtain a desired line connection as soon as possible (in particular, every person wants to be connected to a desired destination in preference to other people).
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a service method of connection management for a communication line, said method being capable of performing a desired connection of the communication line in accordance with a telephone caller""s request when the caller wants to be connected to a called person by way of the communication line, said method comprising the steps of: detecting whether or not the communication line is crowded; measuring a passed time of a connected state of the communication line if the communication line is crowded; determining whether or not the passed.time of the connected state has reached a predetermined set-up time; and compulsorily interrupting the connected state of the communication line when the passed time of the connected state has reached the predetermined set-up time.
According to another aspect of the present invention, said service method of connection management is capable of performing a preference connection whose connection frequency has been changed with respect to a called person in accordance with a specific charge.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, said method further comprises a step of giving out an advance notice indicating a coming compulsory interruption of a connected state of a communication line,
According to a still further aspect of the present invention, said method further comprises a step of varying a time period from the start of a telephone call to a compulsory termination of a connected state of a communication line, said variation being performed in view of a crowded extent of a communication line.